About this poem

From the judges: "‘Never Say Never Say Never’ is a strange poem about the absolutes of endings set against the desire to ‘keep touching’, to ‘leave just one choice unmade’; it wants the provisional and the continually repeated, the coming back, as well as the leaving, as a new permanence. It seems to be spoken by a lover to his or her sleeping partner, and sets its speaker’s desire for continuity against the recognition of the implacable fact that there is ‘always, eventually, the last time’. " - Gerry Cambridge

Patrick James Errington is a poet and translator from the prairies of Alberta, Canada. Winner of The London Magazine Poetry Prize 2016, his poems have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies, including Best New Poets 2016, The Iowa Review, American Literary Review, West Branch, Cider Press Review, Copper Nickel, Diagram, The Adroit Journal, and Horsethief. A graduate of Columbia University’s MFA programme, Patrick currently lives in Edinburgh, where he is a PhD researcher at the University of St Andrews.